While the campaign to get Daniel Whelan named as the First-Team All-Pro punter for the 2025 season is in full swing, let’s take a moment to appreciate how impressive a campaign the Green Bay Packers’ third-year
punter put up this year. Whelan’s rankings in the context of the NFL are tremendous and he absolutely deserves All-Pro status, but what he has done in comparison to previous single-season franchise records is mind-boggling.
Whelan finished the season with 49 total punts for 2,533 gross yards. That’s an average of 51.7 yards per punt, a number that stands alone in the Packers’ record book.
Punting in Green Bay is no easy task, either. The swirling winds at Lambeau Field are known to be difficult conditions for punters, and the colder temperatures late in the season contribute as well. This isn’t quite the same as having your home stadium being in a dome, and Whelan certainly had his share of impressive kicks both outside in the cold and indoors.
With that said, Whelan avoided the conditions in a few games this season; he did not have a single punt in three separate games, all outdoor contests in November or December. Bizarrely, all came in Packers losses, first at home against the Carolina Panthers, then in back-to-back late-season losses on the road at Chicago and at home against Baltimore. It’s possible that adding a few punts in less-than-ideal conditions in those games might have ticked his average down a bit.
Still, Whelan’s splits weren’t that stark. In 13 outdoor games this season, he averaged 50.3 yards per punt, compared to a 54.8-yard average in four games under a roof. He also was consistent through changing temperatures, maintaining an average of more than 50 yards per punt in each month of the season. Whelan even came close to the 50-yard mark in games at Lambeau Field, averaging 49.2 yards at home (compared to 53.3 on the road).
So not only was Whelan great, but he was consistently great. Now let’s look at how historically great Whelan’s numbers were during his incredible 2025, particularly against the backdrop of punting in Green Bay.
Gross Punting Average
This is the big one. Whelan’s 51.7-yard gross average tied for the NFL lead when rounding to the nearest tenth-yard, matching Blake Gillikin of the Arizona Cardinals who only played five games early in the season before landing on injured reserve. This absolutely obliterated the Packers’ previous single-season average record, which had belonged to Corey Bojorquez.
In 2021, Bojorquez set the previous record by averaging 46.5 yards per punt. Yes, that’s right: Whelan shattered that previous franchise record by more than five full yards. Whelan was close to breaking Bojorquez’s previous mark in each of his first two seasons, but fell just short. 2023 saw him average 46.2 yards, and he was at 46.1 last season before breaking through in 2025.
Bojorquez also had a bit of a bigger home/road split that year than Whelan did. He averaged 44.2 yards at Lambeau Field compared to 49.2 on the road, a 5.0-yard difference. Whelan’s split was only 3.6 yards, and his 49.6-yard average at home this season even beat Bojorquez’s road numbers from 2021.
Finally, Whelan’s average not only led the NFL this season — it also ranks third all-time in NFL history by a qualifying punter. Only Ryan Stonehouse of the Tennessee Titans has ever put up a bigger number, doing so with a 53.1-yard average in both 2022 and 2023.
Net Punting Average
While Bojorquez held the Packers’ franchise record for gross punting average, it was Justin Vogel who held the top mark for net average in a season, which accounts for returns and touchbacks. In the 2017 season, Vogel averaged 44.4 gross yards per punt, but his net was an impressive 41.6 yards, in part due to hitting just two touchbacks all season.
However, Whelan’s 2025 averaged 44.3 net yards, nearly three yards better than Vogel’s 2017 season. That was also a substantial improvement over his 2023 and 2024 results, which hovered around 40 yards. He did hit 8 touchbacks in 2025, however, setting a career high, and his difference between gross and net was a bit larger at 7.4 yards than the roughly 6-yard difference from his previous seasons. Still, his bigger kicks did end up netting the Packers an average of four more yards of field position than in his previous two years and
In context of 2025, Whelan’s net average was fourth among all punters. Only the Ravens’ Jordan Stout (44.9), Indianapolis’ Rigoberto Sanchez (44.7), and Minnesota’s Ryan Wright (44.5) had better net averages than Whelan.
